config-ml.in

[Bruce Korb]

I need to use libffi for some work I am doing.  It seemed like
it ought to be pretty simple:  just run the autoconfigure bootstrapping
programs, configure and build.  No such luck using this script in the
libffi subdirectory of GCC:

#! /bin/sh

libtoolize --force --copy
aclocal
autoheader
automake --gnu --add-missing --copy
autoconf

set -e
for f in \
        config-ml.in \
        config.guess \
        config.sub \
        depcomp \
        install-sh \
        libjava/classpath/ltcf-c.sh \
        libjava/classpath/ltconfig \
        ltmain.sh \
        missing
do
  test -f ${f} || cp ../$f .
done

================

because the configure run emits this error:

configure: creating ./config.status
config.status: creating include/Makefile
config.status: creating include/ffi.h
config.status: creating Makefile
config.status: creating testsuite/Makefile
config.status: creating fficonfig.h
config.status: linking ./src/x86/ffitarget.h to include/ffitarget.h
config.status: executing default-1 commands
./config.status: line 1081: ./../../config-ml.in: No such file or directory

======================

This is an interesting problem because it is not even mentioned in
configure.ac.  Before running the bootstrap, you'll see this:

$ fgrep config-ml.in *
ChangeLog:      * configure.in: Adjust command to source config-ml.in to account
configure:# See config-ml.in if you want the gory details.
configure:   ac_file=Makefile . ${multi_basedir}/config-ml.in


================= and afterwards:

$ bash ./config-libffi
You should update your `aclocal.m4' by running aclocal.
Putting files in AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR, `..'.
/home/gnu/proj/gcc/libffi
$ fgrep config-ml.in *
ChangeLog:      * configure.in: Adjust command to source config-ml.in to account
aclocal.m4:# See config-ml.in if you want the gory details.
aclocal.m4:   ac_file=]m4_default([$1],Makefile)[ . 
${multi_basedir}/config-ml.in
config-libffi:        config-ml.in \
config-ml.in:#     . ${with_multisrctop}../../config-ml.in
config-ml.in:#     . ${with_multisrctop}../config-ml.in
config-ml.in:#   . ${srcdir}/../config-ml.in
config-ml.in:      if [ -f ${ml_realsrcdir}/../config-ml.in ]; then
config-ml.in:      if [ -f ${ml_realsrcdir}/../../config-ml.in ]; then
config-ml.in:    if [ -f ${ml_realsrcdir}/../config-ml.in ]; then
configure:# See config-ml.in if you want the gory details.
configure:   ac_file=Makefile . ${multi_basedir}/config-ml.in

==================

So, it seems the bootstrap script has some magical way of knowing a-priori
that this file has to live in some "multi_basedir" directory and that that
directory has to be named "./../..".  I guess I could bury libffi a couple
of directories down into a dummy hierarchy just so I could put this config
file into "../..", but that really does not seem right.

So, finally, here's the question:  what is the "right" way to fix this?

Thank you - Bruce